Jonathan Speelman on Chess

The play-off session at the Unification Match in Elista was one of the tensest tracts of play I've ever witnessed, even though this was only virtually and, indeed, a whole continent away.

As I've made clear before, following the shenanigans surrounding game five, I was, like (I believe) the vast majority of other grandmasters, firmly supporting Kramnik. The result was therefore extremely welcome and it was also, surely, greatly to the advantage of chess's reputation worldwide.

It was almost inevitable that in the aftermath there would be further manoeuvring and this has already started with the Topalov camp claiming that under the new (or rather early 20th-century) FIDE rules, whereby any player of 2700-plus who can raise enough money has the right to challenge the world champion, they will be issuing just such a challenge for Topalov to play Kramnik in Sofia next March.

According to the Russian news service Gazeta, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has said that Topalov has the right to a rematch according to the official regulations but Kramnik retorted that: 'Today Topalov may challenge me, tomorrow Anand, Leko... Ignoring one of these proposals and playing many matches with one player will not be right.'

As both Vassily Smyslov and Mikhail Tal discovered after they defeated Mikhail Botvinnik and he claimed his right to a world championship rematch, it is extremely hard to play even a year after such a momentous achievement, let alone six months. So the idea that Kramnik will allow himself to be forced to play Topalov in just six months, and in Sofia of all places, is extremely unlikely. We can therefore infer that the heavyweight political manoeuvring has only just begun; and while FIDE would surely prefer a more biddable champion, as the incumbent his hand is far from weak.

It's quite a relief to turn back from the politicking to the play-off games themselves which were of an impressively high quality, given the extreme tension.

Vladimir Kramnik (Black to play)

Veselin Topalov (White)

This was the denouement of the first play-off game. Kramnik has won a pawn but the knight is offside on a4 and if it returns to b6 then the pin Bc5 looks deadly. However Kramnik did play

34...Nb6 and after

35 Bc5 a4 36 Ra1 which was necessary to stop the pawn's further advance, bashed his way out with the splendid

10 e4 b4 11 e5 bxc3 12 exf6 Bxf6 13 bxc3 c5 14 dxc5 Nxc5 14...0-0 is normal. It seems that this had been played in computer games but in a human context it is extremely rare if not an outright novelty: Black gets a good structure but loses some time.